


Ways Both New and Familiar

by prettybrilliantfunny



Series: We're Steady Apart [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Episode 2x61, Episode Related, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybrilliantfunny/pseuds/prettybrilliantfunny
Summary: There was no signal, no gesture--save the slight lifting of Fjord’s chin--but Caleb answered the request and crossed the room to join him.  It was automatic. Obvious.  And when Fjord found the edge of his coat and tugged him into the space between his knees, that was automatic too.Coda to C02E61





	Ways Both New and Familiar

If he was being honest, Caleb had simply lost track of time.  

 

He paused in the hall; on one side, Yasha’s room, and on the other Nott and Yeza’s. The luck stone turned over and over in his hand. He wasn’t sure why he hesitated, why he’d spent hours in the common room reading and reading and not sleeping away the ache of travel-by-moorbounder. Maybe it was that so much had happened, so quickly--(had they really only been in Xhorhas a week?)--that he was scrambling to find his footing, his knowledge of what was  _ certain _ .

His eyes drifted to another door--his. His and Fjord’s. 

_ (A hand on the back of his neck; the golden friction of magic spinning in his chest--) _ the memory pulled him from the hall (from his hesitation) and he slipped into the room, quiet for fear that Fjord was already asleep.  He needn’t have worried: the half-orc was sitting on the edge of the bed, arms propped on his knees and the falchion in his upturned palms. The door clicked shut behind Caleb and Fjord finished whatever words (prayer?) he’d been saying over the blade, bamfing it back into its pocket dimension.

“Should I be concerned that you are talking to your sword?”

Fjord gave him a wry smile. “It don’t talk back.”

“ _ Gut. _ ”

There was no signal, no gesture--save the slight lifting of Fjord’s chin--but Caleb answered the request and crossed the room to join him.  It was automatic. Obvious. And when Fjord found the edge of his coat and tugged him into the space between his knees, that was automatic too.

“It’s late.”

Caleb hummed his agreement, “It is... _ complex _ \--the magic of moving people across continents. It is taking longer to master teleportation than I had anticipated.” He shrugged, “I am ashamed to admit that particular school of magic is not my forte.”

“Well, now I highly doubt that.” Fjord’s hand was warm against his hip. “Seems every other day you’re pulling new tricks outta that head of yours.”

Caleb scoffed and shook his head. “It is not so much here--” he pointed to his temple “--as it is...here.”

He gestured tentatively to the wishbone his sternum made over the place where his magic lived--and even as he felt the steadying turn of the spindle, sure and safe, his nerves spiked at how easily he’d revealed something so intimate.  

“Here?” Fjord echoed and Caleb’s breath hitched, his only warning before Fjord splayed his fingers across that same place.

Caleb licked his lips. Not trusting his voice, he hummed in assent.  Fjord focused on his own hand (as if he could will himself to see it, to feel the magic that was grown and not given), a small vee in his brow, and Caleb felt the heat rising in his face.  Fingers quicker than his mind, Caleb ran his through Fjord’s hair, tucking the sides behind the slight point of his ear. The blunt scratch of his nails drew a shiver from the other man.

_ (He was so handsome. _ )

Fjord tilted back his head, trying to catch Caleb’s gaze properly (and Caleb obliged). The fire was at his back, halo-ing him in light, but like this--his body curved over Fjord’s--there was nothing to break the long shadow between them, no flame to catch in the half-orc’s amber eyes.  But he could see the heat, the  _ want _ .

“Caleb, I...”

Caleb brushed his hair back again, both hands now carding through the salt-and-pepper at his temples.  He smiled down at him, warm and unbearably fond (even as something hotter, wilder sparked low in his belly).  “It  _ is _ late,” he murmured, echoing Fjord’s earlier words even as the half-orc’s hand curled around one of his, and the other reached up, _ up _ \--and Caleb leaned down without a thought.   _ Of course _ , his mind said;  _ of course _ said Fjord’s hand in the collar of his coat.  

The kiss was easy.  They fit together in ways both new and familiar, mouths slotting together in the dark.  Fjord held him fast around the waist, his face cradled perfectly in Caleb’s hands. It was as if they’d done all this before, in another life--different bodies in a different time, the pull of one another too familiar to forget. Soft intentions easily swayed, Caleb opened his mouth to Fjord’s at the barest press and then everything was alight.  Fjord (again) fought to press a bruise into his mouth, and Caleb--fragile, muttering, deferential Caleb--held him fixed in place. Fjord’s nails dug sharp (tempting,  _ pleading _ ) into the fabric at his waist.  Caleb broke the kiss--gasping for air--and Fjord chased him.  The new edges of his tusks caught the light, sharp enough to cut--( _ next time _ , the thought trilling through Caleb with excitement)--and he kissed him again.  Hands in his hair, he moved Fjord to match, changing the angle, easing the give-and-take to something softer.

At last Caleb pulled back, reluctant and sighing.  Fjord growled low at the sound, and it took everything in Caleb to ignore the white-hot flash of  _ want _ that caused in him.  He felt the magic building up like static behind his eyes (he forced them shut).

“We have time,” he promised, and Fjord’s hand tightened around his wrist.

“Don’t jinx us,” Fjord murmured against his mouth.  It pulled a soft laugh from Caleb, compelling Fjord to kiss him again.  But he must have known he was fighting a losing battle against the wizard, because it only lasted a moment--swift and sweet--before he was leaning back, head tilting to meet Caleb’s eyes again.

He looked so tired.  

“ _ Liebling _ ,” Caleb sighed. He smiled faintly, his thumb tracing the line of Fjord’s jaw. “You need sleep. We both do.”  He said it so matter-of-factly there was nothing Fjord could do to argue (though the heat that still smoldered in his eyes might have done it, were it not for the exhaustion sitting heavy in his frame). Fjord’s answer was a well-timed yawn, followed by a sheepish smile.  

(In the time it took Caleb to divest himself of coat and books and muddy boots, Fjord was already asleep, his body curved inward towards the empty space in the bed, the space Caleb climbed carefully into.)

 

~ ~ ~

 

 _(Fjord dreams._ _He’s bleeding, drowning-_ -none of which Caleb knows--but he knows enough when Fjord bolts upright: choking, vomiting water.) The smell of brine and damp and copper filled the small room; disorienting and worrying.  Caleb didn’t move. He could sense Fjord’s eyes on him (his breathing accelerated and fever-pitched). He didn’t know what to do, what a normal person would do. Pretend not to hear? Or reach for him--draw him (shaking and desperate) to his chest and kiss the fear from the brine?  But Caleb hadn’t been a normal man in a very long time, so he kept perfectly still and fought the itch building in his skin.

Fjord wasn’t quiet when he left (though, some part of him must have been trying), and when he was gone, the door closing just a bit too quickly, a bit too loudly behind him--the tension that had filled the room, went with him.

Caleb sat up, damp sheets pooling around his waist. He listened to the heavy tread of Fjord’s boots fade away down the hall.

He was alone -- no Nott, no Beau, no--. The small crescent of fur in front of the dying hearth stirred. Frumpkin’s eyes shone like dim coins in the dark as they opened, the fey creature reacting instinctively to Caleb’s call (to his distress).  There was no time for hesitation. He gripped one of the bedposts tightly and breathed deep.

“Go,” he whispered. And Frumpkin vanished.

When Caleb slipped his consciousness into Frumpkin’s the cat had reappeared at the top of the stairs.  Fjord had just reached the bottom. He was keeping his head down, though there was no one awake in the common room to see him as he headed outside. Frumpkin narrowly slipped through the door behind him, close enough on the warlock’s heels that he had only to look down and Caleb would be caught.  He didn’t look down. In fact, he seemed barely aware of any of his surroundings--not the rain (Frumpkin’s ire made immediately known to him), nor the empty streets. Caleb watched as he moved, haphazardly up and down the street, until at last he stumbled into an alleyway, the end of which was closed off and stacked with boxes, likely the property of one of the abutting businesses.

It was difficult to see, the way Fjord was hunched over, his fist against the wall.  It obscured his face, and the rain was too loud, too distracting for Caleb to read the tension in his body.  Then Fjord made a familiar--almost frantic gesture--...and nothing happened. No illusions manifested, no disguise converted his green figure into anything other than itself--and Caleb felt the cold twist of shock.  

“ _ Fuck! _ ”

Frumpkin slunk closer--his own curiosity outweighing his displeasure at the downpour--and drew near enough behind the bins and rubbish in the alley to catch the last fragments of Fjord’s voice.  Only it wasn’t his voice--it was something polished and smooth, even when it was shaking--“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s fine.”--and it was nothing at all like the rough rumble that had whispered his name raw with want.

( _ New and familiar _ , his brain supplies. His brain, that too-keen-mind dredging up every slip, every cold-shifting vowel over the last five months.  Jester, her heart in hands asking  _ then will you stop talking like him? _ Like Vandren. The name drops like a coal in Caleb’s hands.)  For a moment--just a moment--his concentration faltered. The sick sensation of being in multiple places and in neither all at once rolled over him.  

He staggered, Frumpkin yowling in irritation--and the sound brought Caleb back, blinking into the rain.  Fjord was halfway down the street and Frumpkin darted after him, dodging here and there to avoid puddles, keeping him in sight all the while.  But there was nowhere else for Fjord to go in the storm. He walked back into the Dim’s Inn, shaking the rain from his hair, and Caleb returned to himself with a breath, fingers aching from his grip on the bedpost. 

The room was still empty, no intruders had taken advantage of the moment and the silver alarm was still in place. The falchion, cold and devoid of magic, lay abandoned on the floor. The sheets were still damp with ocean water, but Caleb laid back down and turned his body to the wall.  He forced himself to be still ( _ to be vulnerable again, _ fist twined in the sheets to ground him) and then he was back in Frumpkin, following Fjord into the room like a ghost. It was disorienting, seeing his own back, the steady breathing that came with the mind-meld, close enough to sleep that Fjord hesitated only a moment before kicking off his boots and climbing back into bed.

In and out went Caleb’s breath in his body; inside of Frumpkin’s...Caleb’s mind  _ waited _ .

  
It took an age for Fjord to fall asleep, but he did. Only when he was certain did Caleb return to his body and the headache that had built from over an hour’s projection. There was no sign, no physical movement that accompanied his return to his own body, but still Caleb hesitated, listening carefully to the sound of Fjord’d breathing.  He softened his own, resisting the urge to rub at the pounding in his temples, and then turned carefully onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling. The fading pulse of blue magic tinged their corner of the room in sea-light, shuttering off and on with the slow blink of Caleb’s eyes. But slowly (eventually) the residual energy dissipated, and Caleb was left in darkness--unable to sleep, unable to do anything but  _ think _ .


End file.
